This could not have been the case in a compound legislature; it is therefore proper to have efficient restraints upon the legislative body. These restraints arise from different sources.
6 I will mention some of them. In this Constitution they will be produced, in a very considerable degree, by a division of the power in the legislative body itself. Under this system, they may arise likewise fr
7om the interference of those officers, who will be introduced into the executive and judicial departments. They may spring also from another source, the election by the people; and finally, under this Constitution, they may proceed from the great and last
resort-from the PEOPLE them-selves. I say, under this Constitution, the legislature may be restrained, and kept within its prescribed bounds, by the interposition of the judicial department. This I hope, sir, to explain clearly and satisfactorily. I had occasion, on a former day, to state that the power of the Constitution was paramount to the power of the legislature, acting under that Constitution.
For it is poss
8ible that the legislature, when acting in that capacity, may transgress the bounds assigned to it, and an act may pass, in the usual mode, not-withstanding that transgression; but when it comes to be discussed before the judges-when they consider its principles and find it to be incompatible with the superior power of the Constitution, it is their du
9ty to pronounce it void. ,And judges, independent and not obliged to look to every session for a continuance of their salaries, will behave with intrepidity and refuse to the act the sanction of judicial authority.
I
1011n the same manner, the
12President of the United States could shield himself and refuse to carry into effect an act that violates the Constitution.